He began by talking about the six magic words ”Have you ever thought about Rotary?” He said membership is important and that you maintain membership partly to keep the club fresh so that people aren’t burnt out. The Council recently approved flexibility in meetings and attendance to help boost membership; for instance clubs only have to meet twice a month. A new pilot program in Cupertino allows RotarAct members to join Rotary at a reduced rate.
He stressed that Rotary means the development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service. He gave some examples of these opportunities including Faces of Hope, a cosmetic surgery program for kids in Guatemala, wheelchair distributions, Via West camp for Developmentally Disabled children in the Santa Cruz Mountains, donating computers and medical equipment to a hospital in Chile, Polio Plus.
Our District has 54 clubs. IT runs from the East Bay down to San Juan Bautista. He said the role of the district is to inspire and support the clubs thru the use of multiple communication tools, training programs and motivating events. Mr. Mahoney stressed that supporting youth programs is a large value added activity for Rotary. We have the largest Interact District in the world with over 7000 members in our district. He also spoke about RYLA and Youth Exchange and the speech contest.
He also discussed the Rotary Foundation and the DDF funds. Half of it is returned to the clubs based on their level of giving. In the past, global grants were matched by DDF funds but not local projects. But now the District has set up an exchange where clubs who do local projects can sell their DDF credits for 1.25 dollars to other clubs that want it for their international projects.
He closed by inviting us to save the date for the Project Fair on October 5th. John Matthews will be the speaker. In addition the International Conference will be in Toronto this year.